Tales From Jókai

by Mór Jókai

Nobody, therefore, at that time knew anything of their secret, for they might just as well have been buried alive as imprisoned in the dungeon of Pontius Pilate.

In those days there lived in the city of Caschau a rich master-butcher, whom they called Stephen Sándor, who had two houses, one in the high town and the other next door to the apothecary's, which had no common thatch, but instead of a roof a cupola made of pointed tiles, like an Egyptian pyramid. In those days the whole of the principal square was built of such houses, with pointed cupolas, the quadrangular stones with which they were built being welded together with lead and iron clasps.

This rich butcher had an only son, Joseph by name, who had also been brought up to be a master-butcher, and had just given proof of his mastery, and manfully too, for he had felled his bullock at the first stroke, and thus escaped the fine of a ducat per extra stroke imposed on bunglers.

Joseph was indeed a stout, well-set-up fellow, yielding to none of his fellows in mettle; at pike-tilting he always kept in his saddle, and never failed to carry off the Shrove Tuesday goose in triumph. Withal he was an honest, diligent youth, and a regular church-goer; and when it came to psalm singing, he out-bawled the whole congregation. Moreover, every man loved and respected him, and never could it be said that he gave half an ounce less in the pound than he ought to have done.

On the day when this Joseph achieved his master-stroke, his father said to him: "Be off, my son; it is high time. Look about the town a bit, and search for a befitting consort. Look not for property or wealth, but rather for a good heart and a pure spirit. These two things every man should bring home; God will give the rest."

Then Joseph confessed to his father that he had already chosen for himself a worthy and beautiful maiden, an orphan from Eperies, Catharine by name, whose father and mother were dead, and who had put up at the house of an elder sister in the town. He would shorten the days of her orphanhood, he said.

Old Stephen Sándor also knew personally the girl, as well as her guardian elder sister; both of them were good and gentle souls; Catharine, in particular, was such a mild and modest creature that one had but to look at her to feel towards her an impulse of human tenderness.

Her only fault was her great pallor. But this trouble every foreign girl was exposed to who came to dwell at Caschau from the surrounding country or from other places, for there was something in the atmosphere of the town or its drinking water from which the fair faces of foreigners derived this pallid hue, which went by the name of the "Caschau complexion." And there was no escape from it save by quitting Caschau and going to other places, or else by taking to themselves a husband.

So the "Caschau complexion" was no great defect in Catharine's face, after all, so soon as Joseph's father had agreed that his son should take her to wife. After the marriage festivities it would vanish of its own accord, and the new wife would grow as rosy as the other pretty girls of Caschau.

So Joseph immediately sent his witnesses to the house of Catharine's elder sister, and not long afterwards rings of espousal were exchanged between them, and the wedding-day was fixed for the market-day before the festival of St. Vincent.